Battle of the Titans Part 2....

The fight still continues with NO knockout blows!

In a new article in the Bits blog Eric Schmidt CEO of Google speaks about future directions Google will take this coming fall in a talk he gave at the Zeitgeist Conference in Arizona.  As we know Google Buzz was brought out with much fanfare.



It was really an attempt to compete and take power away from a growing behemoth called Facebook with a lesser attack on Twitter.  Why should Google, Apple, Microsoft or even Amazon be worried about Facebook?  Because in this new web 2.0+ world where people are doing things in the "web cloud" advertising dollars will be found where people spend the most time on the net.

Here is a terrifying fact for all of these companies.  The average student of college age or High School when they log into the net FIRST check their facebook account.  Even in 2004, when Facebook was nowhere near as big as it is now, it was still a powerhouse!  Read this quote

Facebook supports 882 colleges today – there are about 2,000 in the U.S. if you count community colleges. Their goal is to support all of these over time.

The penetration rate is staggering – about 85% of students in supported colleges have a profile up on FaceBook. That’s 3.85 million members. Chris tells me that 60% log in daily. About 85% log in at least once a week, and 93% log in at least once a month.

With the addition of high schools – there are approximately 22,000 in the U.S., Facebook’s target market increases substantially. Chris tells me “tens of thousands” of high school students have joined since the functionality was launched last friday.

Current membership is 500,000,000!  The members spend 700,000,000,000 minutes a month on Facebook.  The average user has 130 friends.  And at least 50% of them log into their Facebook account EACH DAY!  1,000,000 websites have been integrated with Facebook.  With the growing Mobile market Facebook reigns.  They have so far 150,000,000 users on Mobile devices.  And to make matters even scarier to their competitors, those who use Mobile devices spend twice as much time as non-mobile users of Facebook!  Online advertising is going to go where the people are.  If, mobile advertising is predicted to pass regular online advertising in the future, as non-mobile online advertising is predicted to surpass print, then Facebook is positioned in an extremely strategic position to dominate all online advertising.These startling facts are why Apple and Google are rushing to counter Facebook's power.  Google has tried Buzz which has not even come close to what Facebook can do for the user.  In comparison it only has 150,000,000 members.
Now it is true, that in the ever changing technological market we are in nothing stays the same.  As the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, panta rei (all flows).  One never steps into the same river twice.  But for now, Facebook is the river.  And we have not even discussed Facebooks' socially interactive games like Farmville which though having only 10% of the membership of Facebook still has a staggering 61,600,000 members.
We will continue with Battle of the Titans Part 3 soon.  Stay tuned.  This looks like interesting reading.  Check it out.


You may think you know the story of the Facebook phenomenon, but you haven’t heard the whole story and never like this. Recreating the unbelievable rise of the world's biggest social network—not to mention the planet's youngest billionaire, Mark Zuckerberg—Ben tells a captivating story of betrayal, vast amounts of cash, and two friends who revolutionized the way humans connect to one another—only to have an enormous falling out and never speak again. Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg were two geeky, socially awkward Harvard undergrads who wanted nothing more than to be cool. While Eduardo chose the more straightforward path of trying to gain acceptance into one of the school's ultra-posh, semi-secret Final Clubs, Mark used his computer skills by hacking into Harvard's computers, pulling up all the pictures of every girl on campus to create a sort of "hot-or-not" site exclusive to Harvard. Though the prank nearly got Mark kicked out of college, he and Eduardo realized that they were on to something big. Thus, the initial concept of Facebook was born; what happened next, however, was right out of a Hollywood thriller.



The Accidental Billionairesis the perfect pairing of author and subject. It's pure summer fun—a juicy, fast-paced, unputdownable Mezrich tale that adds to his canon of lad lit. And Hollywood has come calling again: I'm currently working with Dana Brunetti, Scott Rudin, Mike Deluca, and Aaron Sorkin on the movie adaptation ofThe Accidental Billionaires If the book is any indication, the film is going to be a must see.